


castled

by lupinely



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, arthur doesn't understand merlin. they play chess about it, set during s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lupinely/pseuds/lupinely
Summary: Merlin has a way about him. Arthur doesn’t know what it is, exactly—he just knows that it’s there, and it’s Merlin, and no one else has a way about them quite the way that Merlin does.





	castled

 

 

 

Merlin has a way about him. Arthur doesn’t know what it is, exactly—he just knows that it’s there, and it’s Merlin, and no one else has a way about them quite the way that Merlin does. This offhandedly unassuming village nobody, who came out of nowhere and landed in the middle of Arthur’s life nearly seven years ago, and who has remained there every day since. Whereas before Arthur had not realized that anything in his life had been lacking, now he cannot imagine preparing for his day or training the knights or going to meetings with Agravaine and the other advisors (pretending like he knows how to be king-in-waiting, when he doesn’t), without Merlin there beside him, complaining about something or straightening Arthur’s tunic or handing him the scout reports that Arthur forgot in his chambers and would have had to run all the way back for like an idiot if not for Merlin remembering.

It isn’t even that Merlin makes Arthur’s life any easier, because he doesn’t. He is constantly running off and pulling some outrageous stunt or getting horribly injured or trying to sacrifice his life for someone at literally a moment’s notice or inciting Uther’s ire, all of which Arthur manages to do quite well on his own, thank you very much. Arthur has to look after Merlin and make excuses for him to Uther, which he greatly does not enjoy, although it has not actually been as much of a problem lately, not since—

Not since Morgana left. Let’s leave that there.

Arthur does that often, when thinking—tells himself, leave this thought here, so I don’t have to dwell on it anymore. Leave that one there, so it does not touch the other, so connections cannot be made, the snapping of synapses. Take the key and turn the lock on it. Arthur imagines himself at the end of a dark corridor, heavy iron key in his hand, his fingers grazing on rough stone and metal, the bars to the cages in his mind as thick as his wrists. Locking his thoughts up like this is the only way that he has ever been able to subdue the ones that will not rest, that will not keep quiet, that will not stay down when they’re kicked.

It used to always work. Now he can’t keep the cages locked. Arthur will be sitting beside Uther’s bed, trying to think about projected crop yields for the upcoming fall, whether the summer has been too wet, if the harvests will rot, and then he will see Morgana’s face and hear her voice and remember how easily she broke Uther with a _glance,_ with a word—

There. Leave that there.

Merlin used to be one of those thoughts that Arthur would make himself set behind a locked door. But Arthur finds that he would rather think about Merlin, his odd indecipherable manner, than almost anything else right now. All things told.

Which is why, when Arthur runs drills with the knights and pauses to lean on his sword and wipe the sweat out of his eyes, he watches Merlin sidelong. It is the only way that he ever allows himself to watch Merlin. Merlin is talking to Lancelot, and both of them are laughing—harder than Arthur has ever seen Lancelot laugh, but Lancelot is always like that with Merlin, isn’t he? That is when Arthur realizes that the reason he never thought about Merlin too hard before, too directly, with intention, is because Merlin makes absolutely no sense.

It has nothing to do with what Merlin does or does not do for Arthur; nothing to do with his utility as a servant, which Arthur only cares about insofar as he can continue to justify keeping Merlin on to his father. It has to do with _him,_ with what it means to be Merlin, who he is down to his marrow: part romantic idealism and part clear-eyed discernment in equal measure. Arthur liked stories about destiny and fate when he was a child, but Merlin still believes in them unquestioningly. There’s the idealism. “You will be the greatest king that Albion has ever known,” Merlin tells Arthur, and then the next day he tells Arthur that he shouldn’t go out with the knights on patrol because it’s too dangerous and a bandit will shoot him with an arrow or something equally boring and Arthur will die. There’s the discernment, though misplaced. (Mostly misplaced. Because Arthur did get shot, but it was a lucky hit, and besides, it barely even left a scar. No need to be smug about it, Merlin. But of course Merlin wasn’t smug. He just looked scared when Arthur came back clutching one shoulder, and he brought Arthur about a dozen different potions from Gaius to ease the pain and heal the wound. Is that idealistic discernment? Discerning idealism? Arthur doesn’t know what to call it. It’s just Merlin.)

All that aside, Arthur could feel that he understands Merlin, that the things that he does make any sense, if not for the self-sacrificing streak a league wide that Merlin carries with such belligerent pride. Dozens of knights have bent the knee to Arthur and sworn to lay down their lives for him. Very few of them, if any, have ever leapt in front of a crossbow bolt aimed for Arthur while they themselves wore no armor, bore no weapon, and possessed no reason to be in that situation except that they thought that Arthur needed more looking after than what a handful of trained warriors could provide.

Yet Merlin has done that. That and other things like it, and more than once. Often enough to make it a habit, a force of character, inextricable from what makes Merlin who he is.

When you are the crown prince and the king-to-be, you grow used to people swearing to die to protect you. It is what they are are supposed to say. The trick of it all, though—the great illusion of subservience—is that they are never supposed to actually do it. Arthur’s duty is to keep his people safe: all of them, even the ones whom he fights alongside. Every knight who dies in Arthur’s service is a failure by Arthur to keep his promise to them, which is this: I am your king. My duty above all else is to protect Camelot. And you are Camelot.

Uther would not agree, which is why Arthur has never spoken to him about it; he gets enough lectures already, thank you. Or he used to. But what sort of king prefers for others die in his place, rather than face the threats against the kingdom himself? Isn’t that what kings are for?

Kings serve the people; not the other way around—that is what Arthur thinks. He is not sure when this idea got in his head and stuck there like a bit of grit, but there it is. A long time ago, Arthur had thought the way Uther did—maybe not even that long ago. But things change. You grow up, you learn things, you watch others learn things, and your sister tells you that injustice cannot be allowed to flourish, that if you step on someone’s neck long enough, one day they will fight back and you will deserve it.

And she was right, wasn’t she? Up until it became her foot on Camelot’s neck.

Arthur learns from that, too. Even loss has its purpose, if you can shut the door on the rest of it: on how much it hurts. Arthur takes Morgana and he sets her aside, and then he turns the key.

But Merlin says similar things about justice and mercy, things that only Morgana ever used to talk about. And he is far more vocal about it than she ever was, perhaps because Arthur is rarely anywhere without Merlin.

“What do you know about mercy?” Arthur had once snapped at Merlin, when his head ached for not knowing what to do, when Uther-in-his-mind whispered in one ear and Morgana-in-his-heart whispered in the other. “When has anyone ever been at yours?”

Merlin’s face closed like the great double doors of the royal council room. Arthur could practically hear them slamming shut. Merlin cold, Merlin angry, yet still he bit out: “Those most unaccustomed to mercy know its character best.” Then he slammed down the washbasin that he was holding onto Arthur’s desk, water cascading over the side and getting into Arthur’s boots, before he turned and strode out of Arthur’s chambers. The doors did slam shut, then. Not nearly as loud as the ones behind Merlin’s eyes.

Arthur sat there unmoving, flabbergasted, water in his socks, the ink running on his parchment, and he felt furious and ashamed both at once. He has not even known that those feelings could go together—certainly not so well.

They never talked about that conversation again. But the next day, to Uther’s great disapproval, Arthur pardoned the man who had been brought before the court for stealing from the royal stockpiles. Merlin, standing stiff and mulish at Arthur’s side as he had been all morning, relaxed quite visibly, his hands unclasping behind his back and resting open at his sides. When Arthur left the throne room—making a beeline for the door to avoid Uther—Merlin had been right beside him, not even a half-step behind. When he looked at Arthur he was smiling. There was something in Merlin’s eyes that Arthur did not understand, so he put the thought aside, and then he turned the key on it.

Wisdom can come from unlooked-for places. Fair enough. But it comes from Merlin often and vocally, and he is not so much a place unlooked-for as the refuge to which Arthur always turns.

Merlin is not supposed to be that refuge. And so he is a problem that Arthur does not know how to solve.

 

 

 

Agravaine leans over Arthur’s shoulder while Arthur sits in the chair that his father sat in almost every day for nearly thirty years. All the blank faces of the council stare back at him like unwashed plates. A headache lights its fuse behind Arthur’s right eye, and a question—which way next for the troops, my lord?—hovers in the air in front of him, asking that he wager several dozen lives in the name of being almost-king.

Arthur does not know what to say—he does not know what to do. He wants to turn and look at Merlin and ask him for help; but the idea is literally unthinkable, in that Arthur cannot think about it: he refuses to open the locks. Thinking about it would admit several things at once that, once admitted, can never be taken back; to think it is to change all of his thoughts that come after. So Arthur looks at the reports in front of him, and he looks at his hands, and he does not look at anyone’s faces at all.

“My lord,” Agravaine says at last, “we must settle this matter before the day is done. If you would like to discuss it with me in private—”

“I wouldn’t,” Arthur says shortly. Don’t turn, he tells himself; leave this here. But one of the locks in Arthur’s vault is falling out of place, a pin rusted through, or he forgot to slide the deadbolt home. When it falls, Arthur turns and looks not at Agravaine but at Merlin, who is standing behind Arthur’s chair and doing a very good job of pretending not to be about to fall asleep on his feet. He sees Arthur look at him, and he raises an eyebrow.

Those most unaccustomed to mercy know its character best. Who, Arthur wants to ask, wants to shake the answer out of Merlin—who has been so unmerciful to you that you know mercy’s nature so well?

Silence from the council members. A creak of chainmail as one of the senior knights adjusts. Merlin shifts, and then his eyes go wide as Arthur keeps looking at him and the silence extends too long and Agravaine coughs politely. Arthur realizes just exactly what he has done, and several thoughts admit themselves all at once, unassailable.

“Is there anything that I can do for you, sire?” asks Merlin.

“My notes.” It is the only thing that Arthur can think to say. “The ones I was working on last night—I left them in my desk after all. Can you get them?”

That is another mistake. Arthur does not ask Merlin to do something; he tells him. Arthur can feel Agravaine’s gaze on the back of his neck, like a pulse.

Merlin frowns. “I’m sure you brought them. Did you check—”

“Go, Merlin!” Arthur explodes.

Merlin bows and scurries out of the room. Arthur and Agravaine and the advisors sit in awkward, tense silence for a long time, longer than it should take, until Merlin hurries back into the chambers, pink in the face, and hands Arthur a few loose pieces of parchment.

Arthur takes them, careful to make sure that no one sees them, especially not Agravaine. The pages are all blank. Arthur did bring his notes, which Merlin had known, but Merlin had also known that Arthur needed _something,_ even if he had not known why. So Merlin had run to Arthur’s quarters, checked for the notes, and then returned with these blank pages. Blank pages that Arthur can shuffle and peer at and sigh and pretend to think deeply over. Arthur pinches his nose. He wonders if it makes him look like Uther.

Thank you, he almost tells Merlin, then he doesn’t. He can’t afford any more mistakes today.

They make a decision about the patrol. The council members stand, sighing and stretching, and begin to leave. Agravaine speaks to one of them, but his eyes are watching Arthur. Arthur looks down at the table to avoid his gaze. That is when he sees, scrawled in the lower right corner of one of the pages that Merlin handed him, the words _are you all right?_ in Merlin’s remarkably competent script.

And, below that: _you should send them north._

Arthur looks up at him. Merlin shrugs, embarrassed, hiding half a smile. It is the decision that Arthur reached after nearly half an hour of tense debate. He wishes that he had seen Merlin’s note earlier. He wishes that Merlin had not written it.

Some things, once admitted, cannot be locked away. Cages can disappear people, but not thoughts—and like groundwater seeping through the foundations of the castle basements when the water table rises, undoing decades of neatly-fitted stonework with a season’s worth of saturation, so are the cages in Arthur’s mind slowly springing open, one by one, now that he has looked at Merlin and not looked away when he should.

Everyone knows that Arthur relies on Merlin more than he should. Arthur just never realized that Merlin knew it, too.

 

 

 

That morning as he dragged Arthur out of bed, Merlin had said cheerfully, “It’s almost as if you have to work like the rest of us!”

Arthur has buried his head under the pillow. He has never liked mornings, but in the past few years they have become unbearable, mostly because he does not sleep. Not well, anyway. Morgana is gone, but there is still one Pendragon in Camelot who tosses and turns nightly. Her parting gift to him, perhaps.

Arthur has not spoken to Gaius about it. He is the king in everything but name. There are things that he is allowed, and things that he is not. A nightly soporific is the former. If something should happen, and he be too addled by a sedative to properly react—

“I work,” Arthur had protested to Merlin, because it was something to say.

“Oh, yes,” Merlin said. He had laid out Arthur’s clothes and was humming to himself as he set out his breakfast. “And very hard, too. Would you still like me to run in halfway through your meeting with Agravaine later with some excuse for why you have to leave, or is that plan off for today, do you think?”

Arthur threw his undershirt at him.

Then that night, Merlin says, his expression frozen around his eyes in a frown: “You should get some rest, sire.”

He makes absolutely no sense at all.

“It’s not late,” Arthur responds. Which is true. It is just about when Arthur can usually tell whether he will get any sleep that night. Chances seem slim.

“Actually, it’s quite late. For us regular people at least, who prefer to see morning from the proper side of the bed.” Merlin watches Arthur shuffle through the reports on his desk.

“I’m not keeping you,” Arthur says, even though he very much is and knows it. “You can go for the night, if that is what worries you.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Merlin still watching, his intentions unclear. Arthur shuffles the reports and wishes that Merlin would go away after all, then regrets it. Being alone is worse, when the nights run long.

Then Merlin says, “You work too much, sire.”

Arthur bites down on a laugh. “This morning you said that I hardly work, now I work too much. It can’t be both, Merlin.”

The tips of Merlin’s ears are pink. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“I do?” Arthur says.

“Yes.” Unplacating.

“News to me,” Arthur says mildly. “I wonder what else I know that I don’t know I know. Thank God I have you here to tell me.”

Merlin’s face is flushed proper now. He turns away to stir the bathwater and dip a finger in to see if it has warmed enough. After a few stiff moments, he coughs and says, uncharacteristically mollified, “It’s ready, sire, when you are.”

Arthur starts removing his tunic. He has pulled one arm out of its sleeve when Merlin steps up to him, not looking him in the eyes, and says, “Let me.” Merlin starts undoing the laces at the front of Arthur’s shirt. His fingers are cold even through the heavy cloth.

“Is it any wonder that I do no work, with you around making sure that I never do anything for myself?” Arthur asks.

Merlin’s hands still. “I didn’t mean it.”

Arthur lets Merlin pull the tunic over his head and set it aside for tomorrow’s washing up. “I know,” he says, because he does, and then he shucks off his trousers and slides into the bathwater. His breath hisses through his teeth at the sudden shock of heat, and his heartrate quickens. Out of the corner of his vision, he sees Merlin fussing about trying to think of a way to apologize for something that Arthur isn’t even sore over. Arthur shuts his eyes.

He doesn’t like it when Merlin apologizes. Not that it happens frequently, mind you; but Merlin always seems so devastated to have fucked up, as if he thinks that Arthur cares, as if he thinks that Arthur’s estimation of him is going to change somehow.

Arthur does not know whether anything could ever change his estimation of Merlin. Certainly not for the worse.

“Come here.” Arthur tries to make it sound gentle, but it comes out like an order; everything does, from his mouth.

Merlin does. “Is there something that you need?”

“You’re freezing." It is a cold night of a cold winter. The only relief is knowing that an assault on the city is unlikely in weather so dreary and bitter.

“I....”

“Your hands were like icicles.” Arthur says this as if it is a normal thing for him to notice, as if it means nothing, because if he keeps pretending then perhaps he can keep one of his few remaining locks in place. The tumblers, though, are starting to rattle. He hammers the key home. “Warm up, why don’t you?”

Merlin stares at him. “I don’t...think I understand what you mean, Arthur.”

Don’t think on the change, from _sire_ to _Arthur._ Don’t admit the thought. Let it lie. “Are you cold?”

“No.” Stubborn.

Fine. “You don’t mean that, either,” Arthur says, and he grabs Merlin by the wrists and drags him forward and submerges his hands in the hot bathwater. He holds Merlin in place. Merlin is slightly bent forward into the steam rising from the tub, his face pinched and shocked, but his hands do not pull away, his hands do not resist; his hands say something that Arthur hopes he understands.

Merlin swallows, loud in the quiet, water lapping over the basin’s edge. Arthur holds him there for a few moments more, Merlin’s pulse racing beneath his fingertips; then he lets him go. Arthur half-turns and continues washing his shoulders and chest as if nothing happened. Meanwhile Merlin stands there, opaque, his hands dripping onto the floor, _plink._

Just don’t think about it, Arthur wants to tell him. That’s what I do.

“Towel,” Arthur says after a few more long moments.

Merlin moves then, picks up the towel, dries his hands, passes it to Arthur. Arthur climbs out of the tub and goes behind his screen to change. After a small pause, his nightclothes drape themselves over the top of the screen. Arthur pokes his head around the side to see Merlin standing beside the bathtub, staring at the water. Merlin presses one of his hands flat atop its surface, an approximation of floating. Then he pulls his hand away and presses it against his leg.

“Listen,” Arthur says.

Merlin jumps and turns, his hand hiding behind his back. “Do you need something?” His voice neutral to cover his reaction.

Arthur hesitates a moment too long. Merlin’s expression goes from bemused to concerned, the same way it did in the council chambers when Arthur looked at him too long, the way it did before Merlin ran halfway across the castle and came back with a note that asked whether Arthur was all right.

“Stay for a while,” Arthur says. It comes out, as it always does, in the imperative, not the inquisitive.

“Okay,” Merlin says. Once more bemused.

Arthur casts about for something a reason for Merlin to stay when it is late and he must be tired and Arthur is simply unwilling to lie in bed waiting hours for sleep to come. “Let’s play chess. You know how, right?”

“Yes,” Merlin says slowly; “I know how to play chess.” He looks at Arthur. Arthur has run out of words with which to explain himself. He looks back at Merlin helplessly.

“Let me drain the bath,” Merlin says finally, “and get a few things. All right?”

Arthur nods. Merlin leaves with the basin, spares one glance back, and then is gone.

Arthur walks a lap around his chambers, then a second, restless, and then he sits on the edge of his bed. Why does he so desperately wish that Morgana were here? He could always rely on her to tell him when he was being an idiot, before. He had resented it, but depended on it, too. He just never knew it.

She wants to be queen, he realizes at last, the thought coming free from the shackles in which he has had it bound for months: she wants to be queen, and she wants me dead.

And she’s my sister.

All this time, he thinks. All this time, she was my sister after all.

The door opens. Merlin walks in backwards, pushing the door with his back and holding a tray with goblets and a pitcher. He sees the look on Arthur’s face, smiles, says, “Fancy a nightcap?” and sets the tray on the table. He holds up a bottle. “Wine or ale?”

Arthur stares at him. “What?”

“Pretty simple question, really,” Merlin says. He pours Arthur some wine and hands it to him. “Did you set up the chessboard? No, I can see you didn’t.”

When Arthur tries to stand, Merlin puts his hands on Arthur’s shoulders and pushes him back onto the bed. “I know where it is,” he says, as if that is any reason at all, and he retrieves the chessboard from a chest on the other side of the room and starts arranging it on the table, queen on her own color, white against black. Arthur looks into his cup, then gets up and sits opposite Merlin.

Merlin crooks a smile and pours some wine for himself. It is something that he would have once asked Arthur before doing, yet now it is something that he has not asked permission to do for years. Then Merlin’s hand hovers for a moment, hesitating, and he retrieves a vial from his pocket.

“Gaius prescribes this when people can’t sleep,” Merlin says. “I don’t know if—I mean, I thought you might want to try it, but maybe you just hadn’t thought about it. Or maybe you didn’t want to talk about it to Gaius, I don’t know—”

“No,” Arthur says.

“See! I knew that was it.” Self-satisfied, as if he has figured Arthur out. Merlin unscrews the lid of the potion and holds it out to Arthur, beaming. “Though it’s really no issue for Gaius, he would never tell anyone—still, if you don’t want me to tell him, then I promise I won’t—”

Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose. “No, I don’t want that,” he says, “not: no, don’t tell Gaius.” Although don’t do that, either. “I’m fine, Merlin. I don’t need it.”

Merlin cuts himself off mid-sentence, frowning. “Why not?”

“It’s....” Arthur struggles for a lie, or a half-truth, and comes up with nothing. “I need my mind to be clear all the time, in case something happens.”

“Your mind would be clearer if you slept.”

“I sleep,” Arthur says.

Merlin gives him a skeptical look, but he closes the vial. “You’re being much weirder than usual. I think it’s the sleep deprivation.”

“I’ve seen you turn down potions to numb pain half a dozen times,” Arthur says. “Gaius has begged you to take them and you still refused.”

Merlin flushes. “That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because I....” Merlin glares at him. “Because it is.”

“I don’t see how.”

“It’s very complicated,” Merlin snaps. “I can see how you wouldn’t understand it. Just—look, Arthur, I’ve seen you pacing away half the night, I have to drag you out of bed in the mornings—don’t you owe it to Camelot to take care of yourself?”

Arthur bites down hard on his sudden anger. “Don’t you owe the same to me?”

Merlin’s jaw works. He grips the vial so tightly that Arthur wonders whether it will shatter. Then Merlin sets it aside on the tray and says, quietly, “White goes first. Your move.”

Arthur takes one of his knights and jumps it over the row of pawns.

“Of course you go for a knight first,” Merlin grumbles, and he slides forward a pawn.

The game starts slowly enough; neither of them is an aggressive chess player, and while Arthur tries to bait Merlin into several traps, Merlin falls for none of them. But he does not set any traps himself, nor maneuver toward some sort of long-term plan as far as Arthur can discern. Merlin loses a bishop. Arthur loses a rook and a knight.

“Why, then?” Merlin suddenly asks.

Arthur, who was frowning at his pieces, looks up. “What?”

“Why did you ask me to stay,” Merlin says, “if not for—well, I thought that you were hinting.... I thought that you wanted me to try and help you sleep, or something, and that’s why I brought the potion. But if it’s not that, then I have to admit that I’m perplexed. Are you annoyed about what I did during the council meeting earlier? I know that I shouldn’t have, but the way you were looking at m—”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, “shut up.”

“So you are angry.”

“No.”

“You look pretty angry.”

“I’m not....” Arthur picks up a bishop, sets it down. “Angry. Not at you.”

Merlin studies Arthur’s face, with far greater intensity than he has yet shown for their game. “Then what?” His rook takes Arthur’s bishop.

“I’m angry,” Arthur says, “because I wanted to ask your advice during the council meeting, and then I remembered where I was. I thought of what my father would say, and how I would have to explain myself to him somehow, but I can’t, because I am not supposed to want to ask you for advice.” Arthur’s knight jumps again. “And I asked you to stay here because I would much rather play chess with you than lie awake staring at the ceiling in the dark for four hours.”

Merlin nudges a pawn forward. “Oh.”

“Yes, Merlin,” Arthur says, “oh. Check.”

Merlin frowns at the board. “Since when?”

“Since you took my bishop and left your entire left side open to my knight.”

“Ass,” Merlin mutters as he moves his king out of harm’s way.

Arthur wins the game in the next four moves. Not handily—Merlin is a good challenge, an interesting chess player. Just far too defensive and reactive.

“You don’t take enough risks,” Arthur says while he resets the chessboard. “You need to be more willing to sacrifice your pieces.”

Merlin holds one of his knights and looks at it sadly. “I don’t like to lose any of them.”

Arthur snorts. “That’s fucking rich, coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It—” Arthur founders and realizes how badly he has trapped himself. Now he is the chess piece king staring down the enemy bishop that has him pinned. “You know what I mean. You throw yourself in front of someone at the first sign of a threat. You won’t sacrifice your pieces in chess, but you’re all too willing to sacrifice yourself when it isn’t a game.”

“When do I do that?”

“I don’t have a fucking itemized list memorized,” Arthur says, exasperated. “Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean. You always run around promising to protect people and swearing to keep them safe.”

Merlin leans on his elbow and gives Arthur a very funny look. “No, I don’t.”

“You’ve said as much to me more times than I can count.”

Merlin is flushed again. Arthur had once caught Morgana pinching her face before a mirror to try and make color rise in her cheeks. Merlin seems able to do it practically at will. “Yes,” Merlin says slowly, not meeting Arthur’s gaze. “To you.”

Arthur waves a hand. “You’re saying that if Gwen were in danger, you wouldn’t do everything you could to keep her safe?”

“Of course I would.” Merlin looks stung. Arthur cannot figure out what is happening here that he doesn’t understand. “She’s my friend. But it’s different with you. You’re my....”

Merlin falls silent, apparently unable to find the right word, or having found the right word yet unwilling to say it.

“I don’t say things like that to anyone else,” he says at last. “I don’t.... I’m _your_ servant.”

“Servants,” Arthur says, “don’t promise to protect me or die trying.”

Merlin swallows. He is still holding the knight chess piece, his thumb moving back and forth over the horse’s chiseled stone mane. “Then maybe,” he says quietly, his throat working, his gaze fixed on the chessboard, “I’m not just your servant.”

Arthur almost reaches across the table to take the knight from Merlin’s hand. He stops himself. “No. I don’t know what you are. That’s the problem.”

Merlin does meet Arthur’s gaze. Defiant. “I’m not going to stop. So don’t try to make me.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Merlin puts down the knight and lays his empty hand flat on the table. “Okay,” he says. “Good.”

They sit in silence for a while. In his head, Arthur grips the key, the last key of them all, and feels its rough iron edges dig into his hands. Leave it here, he tells himself; leave it here, and let it lie. He moves one of his pawns. After a moment, so does Merlin, and they begin a new game.

Half an hour passes as they play. The fire burns low. Merlin gets up to feed more wood into it. Then he comes back to the table and looks at Arthur, his head tilted, as if he’s trying to figure something.

“Are you tired at all?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“You should rest, then.”

“It doesn’t matter how tired I am,” Arthur says. “I still won’t sleep. That’s not the problem.”

“Okay.” Merlin slides one of his bishops across the board. Arthur takes it in his next move. “Is this helping, at least?”

Arthur looks at the board. It is nearly empty, now; they each only have a handful of pieces left. “Yes.”

“Good.” Merlin, still watching Arthur. Arthur wishes that he wouldn’t. Hiding from himself is hard enough. Hiding from Merlin is impossible. It always has been.

“I really don’t say those things to anyone else, you know.” Merlin’s voice is quiet, as if he is scared to speak but doing so anyway. He has always been braver than Arthur has ever known what to do with. “And I don’t want to.”

“Why?” asks Arthur. “That’s what I don’t understand.”

“Why not?”

“Why me.”

“Oh.” Merlin drops his gaze to the board. He looks flustered again, and Arthur cannot figure out why. Merlin worries at his bottom lip; then he stops, and smiles. He moves his rook. “Checkmate.”

Arthur blinks down at the game. “What?”

“I took your advice and sacrificed some pieces. You were right after all.”

Arthur’s face feels hot. “You’re an ass.”

“You’re a sore loser,” Merlin says cheerfully. He sweeps aside the pieces and begins rearranging them. “Best two out of three, or should we call it a night?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“And I’m not going to,” Merlin says.

Arthur throws a chess piece at him. Merlin ducks and throws one back. Arthur, not expecting it, does not move out of the way. It strikes him in the face, just below his left eye. Something hot drips down his cheek.

“Fuck.” Merlin is already on his feet. “I’m sorry, I thought you were going to—here, let me.” He grabs a clean washrag and presses it against Arthur’s face. “I am an ass. Do you want ice?”

Arthur just looks at Merlin standing over him, his hand against Arthur’s face, and does not answer. Merlin blinks. He tries to step away, but Arthur puts his hand over Merlin’s and keeps him from doing so.

“Don’t,” he says.

Merlin stills, that same confused expression on his face. He looks at Arthur the way he did over the washbasin while Arthur held his hands submerged to the wrist. His thumb touches the corner of Arthur’s mouth and skitters away, burned.

The last cage rattles. Arthur turns his back on it.

Merlin, uneasy. “Arthur....”

“Shut up,” Arthur says, and he pulls Merlin in by the front of his tunic and kisses him.

He can feel Merlin’s sudden startled inhale. For a long moment, Merlin does nothing else. Their mouths hover a breath apart, Arthur’s face tilted towards Merlin’s, his eyes open so that he can watch the thoughts cross and leave Merlin’s face. Merlin’s errant thumb touches Arthur’s lip again. This time it does not move away. Arthur leans into his touch, and Merlin shivers.

“Arthur,” he says, wrecked.

“Yeah?” A whisper.

Merlin makes a frustrated noise. “Damn it,” he says, and he presses his mouth against Arthur’s, hard. His free hand comes up against Arthur’s face to join the other and hold him steady. Arthur presses upwards into the kiss, pulling Merlin down and in, clutching his tunic with both hands, his head tilted back, the whole long line of his throat exposed. He sucks in breaths between kisses, barely letting Merlin pull away for even that much, and he can hear Merlin laughing a little, distantly. One of Merlin’s hands slides to touch the back of Arthur’s neck, his hair.

“Arthur,” Merlin murmurs, “Arthur,” but Arthur does not give him space to say anything else. His heart is hammering, and Merlin’s hands aren’t cold anymore; they’re warm and firm and Merlin drags his fingers through Arthur’s hair and grips his shoulders, his deltoids.

Arthur tries to pull him closer. Merlin laughs. “Arthur, I can’t—” he tries to say, and then he climbs into Arthur’s lap and pushes him against the back of the chair, his thighs bracing Arthur’s waist. Arthur lets go of his shirt and wraps his arms around Merlin, holding him in place. He can feel Merlin smiling. My God, Arthur thinks—has this been it all along? Has this been what I kept locked inside?

Finally, finally, he lets Merlin pull away. Merlin’s hands rest on either side of Arthur’s face, his thumbs brushing over Arthur’s cheekbones. Merlin looks down at Arthur, not looking away, his eyes taking in everything, looking everywhere. Arthur looks back at him, the muss of his hair, the clear blue lake windows of his eyes, the way his tongue touches the corner of his mouth, just for a moment.

Merlin says, “I guess you figured it out, then.”

“Figured what?”

“This.” Merlin kisses Arthur again. “Why you.”

Arthur swallows. “Oh.”

Merlin smiles at him. He looks terrified and as if he is trying to hide it. He touches Arthur’s cheek where the chess piece struck him. “The bleeding’s stopped.” His smile slowly fades as he watches Arthur. “Are you all right?”

Arthur does not know what to say. He moves his hands over Merlin’s back and Merlin shivers again, which Arthur finds extremely satisfying. “I don’t know.”

“No,” Merlin says. “I suppose you don’t.” He sighs, heavy. “What am I going to do with you? You won’t take the potion, you won’t drink the wine—I thought maybe that might help you sleep, just a little, if you wouldn’t take the potion. You make my life rather difficult, you know.”

“Really?” Just watching Merlin.

“Exceedingly so.” Merlin leans down and presses his forehead against Arthur’s. “Just tell me what you need, and I’ll get it.”

Arthur closes his eyes. “I don’t need anything.”

“Liar,” Merlin says softly. He exhales and folds himself against Arthur, putting his arms around Arthur’s shoulders and hugging him close. “What am I going to do?” he repeats to himself.

Arthur turns his head towards Merlin, his nose against Merlin’s neck, his mouth pressed against Merlin’s skin. Merlin smells like sweat and straw, sweet and familiar. “Sorry.”

Merlin tenses. “Shut up.” He pulls back and looks hard at Arthur, and then his expression softens. “Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep, so you’re not alone?”

Arthur’s hands, tracing over Merlin’s back, go still. “No.”

Bewilderment creeps over Merlin’s expression. “All right.”

Words lock themselves behind Arthur’s teeth. He knows what he wants to say, but he cannot say it. He pulls Merlin close again, hugging him, and presses his mouth against the pulse in Merlin’s neck. Merlin sighs, his fingers moving through Arthur’s hair. What are you going to do with me? Arthur thinks—what haven’t you done, already?

“Will you stay?” Arthur forces the syllables through like a needle through leather and pricks himself on the point on the other side. “Not until I sleep, but.... Will you stay until morning?”

Tension that Arthur had not even realized Merlin was holding drains from Merlin’s shoulders. “Yes.” He turns his face towards Arthur and kisses him. “Of course. Idiot.”

Arthur snorts. “You can’t call me that.”

“I can, and I will.” Merlin pauses, then adds: “You’re not just my king after all, either.”

Arthur closes his eyes, leans into him. Yes, he thinks—yes that’s it, of course.

After a short while, Merlin extricates himself from Arthur and pulls him to his feet. “Come on.” Arthur lets himself be lead. Merlin leads him to the bed and pushes him onto it. “Are you tired?”

Arthur leans towards Merlin, nuzzles against his torso. “Yeah.”

A smile. “Good.” A kiss. “I’ll be right over there, then.”

Arthur grabs Merlin’s wrist. “Stay.”

“Stay?”

“Here.”

“I....” Merlin looks at him. “Okay.” His voice a river whisper. He clears his throat. “I didn’t bring any of my nightclothes. I guess I can sleep in this.” He starts taking off his jacket.

Arthur stands and goes to his cabinet, produces one of his own undershirts. “Here.”

Merlin takes it and stands there holding it, motionless. Arthur cannot tell if his face is flushed again, or if it is just the light of the fire, reflected. After a moment, Merlin moves mechanically, removing his tunic and scarf, revealing his bare chest, the lines of his hipbones. Arthur looks away. You can tell, can’t you, when someone is unused to changing with others around. Merlin didn’t even think to use the screen.

Arthur slips back beneath the blankets, looking at the ceiling because it is somewhere to look that is not Merlin. Merlin, undressed save for Arthur’s tunic, bends by the fire and feeds some more wood into it. Arthur, losing the battle with himself, looks at him sidelong; then changes his mind, and looks at him forthright. Merlin glances back and smiles.

“Always wanted to sleep in this bed,” he says to Arthur as he slips under the blankets on the other side. He has blown out the candles beside the bed. Now the fire on the other side of the room is the only source of light, and Merlin’s face is a study in obscurity.

Arthur tries not to smile. “Oh?”

“Not like that.” Merlin glares at him. “It’s always looked so comfortable.” He fluffs one of the pillows, then rests his head on it, looking at Arthur.

“What’s your verdict?”

Merlin considers, wriggling a little under the blankets. “Better than it looks.”

Arthur snorts. “You’re gonna be out in seconds. You fall asleep on your feet half the time.”

“I do not,” Merlin says, indignant. He moves closer to Arthur. “And I won’t. I promise not to until you fall asleep.”

Arthur looks at him. They are very close now, indeed. “That might be harder than you think.”

“I think I’m up to it.” Merlin’s right hand creeps up and covers Arthur’s left. “I’m very reliable, you know.”

“Yes.” Arthur shifts his hand so that their fingers intertwine. “I’ve noticed.”

Merlin’s eyes sparkle. His mouth twists, and Arthur watches him dig his teeth into his lower lip, just for a moment. Merlin’s hand twitches. “Do you want...?” He trails off, looking embarrassed, and shrugs. Arthur raises an eyebrow at him.

Merlin bites his lip again, then makes up his mind. “Roll over.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

Arthur huffs in exasperation, but he does as he is told, letting go of Merlin’s hand though he does not want to. He feels very warm; and when Merlin’s arm slips over his side and hugs him close, he stiffens, not expecting it. Merlin presses his body against Arthur’s back, holding him, and then drops a kiss at the base of Arthur’s neck.

“Is this all right?” he asks.

Arthur has to think about it for a moment. He has never been held like this before. But Merlin is warm and safe, his hand lingering over Arthur’s stomach, gentle. When Arthur closes his eyes, there is none of the low-grade panic that he has come to associate with sleepless nights: the dread of sleep never coming.

“Yes,” he says. He takes Merlin’s hand and guides it to his face, then kisses Merlin’s knuckles.

He feels Merlin smile against his neck. “Good.” A pause. “Goodnight, Arthur.”

Arthur drifts towards sleep. Not quickly, for he never does; but more easily than he has in months. In his mind, the last remaining lock opens. The cage within is empty.

What do you know about showing mercy? Arthur wonders.

More than you think.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
